Within many fields, notably dredging waterways and ship canals, material including soils such as mud and other bottom sediment necessitate excavation and removal to other locations. This soil material is sometimes used for construction, redeposited on coastal features such as beaches, headlands or lagoons, the floor of a nearby channel, bay, or other waterway or body of water, at sea or on land. This material is often contaminated and remedial actions may be needed before reuse or deposit.
Common current practices and processes for remedial action for any soil, such as dredged soil, is highly involved, costly and includes many different steps and machinery. A few options exist to clean or remediate the soil material, such as removing the contaminants and redepositing the soil, or simply depositing non-contaminated soil in a new location. However, when required, removing the containments is costly and simply depositing the soil is inefficient. An improved current process then includes a method where one process is to mix the dredged or raw material with an agent which may be a hardening agent or other material, so that the soil or soil and contaminants become solidified or suspended permanently in the matrix of the hardening agent or similar material and may be rendered useful, such as being turned into soil cement or similar material as well as the containments, if they exist in the soil, may be rendered harmless or non-detrimental to the environment or users. This method then is efficient, in that it reduces the environmental impact of the contaminants and also allows for the reuse of the contaminated or non-contaminated material as fill material or similar materials.
However, the process of specifically mixing the raw material or dredged sediment sand hardening agent or other material for use is still costly as it involves many mixing containers, materials, processes and machinery including the use of kneading mixers which take time and are costly. This provides a hurdle both technically and economically for the remedial use of the contaminated or uncontaminated dredged or raw material, and thus a problem exists for further improvement in efficiency in the use of remediated soil.